For Kenny Frank re: BASIC?! re: (how many embedded

[holmgrn@xxxxxxxx]

> Please let us know what causes you GPF's because
> we very much want (and need) to make it rock solid.

I dunno. Lemme dig into it again when I return. Every time I do
go under the hood, I just get discouraged and give up. I simply
HATE that I can't just plug in my Xy4DOS KBD file without having
the Help system come up every time I hit the Alt key! I can't
get all the Windowsy garbage out of sight (the bars and buttons
and stuff, and the bleeping COLOR) and just have a tabula rasa or
a black hole on the screen (like a painter with a fresh canvas)
with "ui=1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,0,0" without getting error msg 688
wiping out my PRoMPT line and beeping at me *every* *single*
*time* I execute a command! (I reported that in 1993, they said
"Robert, it's a bug", the one and only bug fix is released two
years later, and this gnat is still there -- discouraging. Can I
give you a couple of bucks for the 1 minute of programming time
required to squash it?) I just DETEST that all the speed
optimization has gone into graphics mode (WZ) and that expanded
and draft modes are like tortoises (the reverse of XyDOS). You
know why, don't you? It's because expanded and draft modes in
XyWin are just FAKES; they're really graphics mode *masquerading*
as expanded or draft. And since that's the case, why were the
limitations of DOS imported into a Windows environment? There's
*no need* to use that ugly OEM system font at all! Since XyWin
is emulating IBM character mode anyway in its implementation of
expanded and draft modes -- since all modes in XyWin are really
graphics modes, and all employ the graphics engine -- then why
not just display those emulated modes with Courier or whatever
the user chooses? You follow me? Thus, in eXPanded mode, you'd
display the guillemets and the ordinarily-hidden codes using
fonts which (at present) are only accessible in graphics (WZ)
mode. Why not? Boy, that would look good, wouldn't it? It
seems so obvious to me. And if you did, we'd be able to enjoy
the (really quite impressive) speed of graphics mode without the
bottleneck of your character mode emulation.

But... frankly, I like editing in IBM text mode better anyway.
Nice big characters. Expanded mode is my default; I hardly ever
use anything else. The pizazz of graphics creates a false focus.
Cheap thrills. Most of the time I print with fixed-width fonts
only for similar reasons: I want attention to words, not serifs
and nifty formatting.

There's an old saying, Kenny, about late-staying guests, "How can
we miss you if you won't leave?" But... are you _sure_ you want
to use Basic? (Sounds like a done deal to me; and if so, why ask
us?) Basic is dead. MicroSoft's resurrecting it is like pushing
Aramaic in the Middle East in the interests of the widest
possible acceptance. More to the point, it's like keeping DOS
around for 15 years. It's a dodo. It should've died in 1984
when IBM issued the AT! That was the *purpose* of the AT
(multitasking and all)...


P.S.  The person who wanted to buy II+ has a point. Why am I
using dinky T32.EXE to edit CONFIG.SYS if I have a boot failure,
when I could be using II+? Gosh, I probably don't have a copy
either! You wouldn't like to make it "freeware", would you?
Just ZIP it up and hand it out? A *great* little editor
fixer-upper...

P.S.S. Nathan has another good point. Xy should be the best
file manager around. Why should we have to use another program
for that (and other) functions? Gradually, that multifunctional
ground has slipped out from under XyWrite over the years. It
should also be the most versatile mail reader. Handle QWKs
(using external protocols, of course, but managing the process).
HTML certainly. An all-purpose tool.


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Robert J. Holmgren holmgrn@xxxxxxxx
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